The 2012 NCAA Men’s Division I Championship is now down to its “Final Four.” The tournament, which started with 68 teams on March 13, showed some real madness this season.
Two powerhouse No. 2-seeded teams, the Duke Blue Devils and the Missouri Tigers, fell to the No. 15 seeded at-large bid teams the Lehigh Mountain Hawks and the Norfolk Sate Spartans.
The tournament gave many bracket constructers headaches and opened up a chance for another Cinderella team run such as the 2010 Butler Bulldogs or the 2004 George Mason Patriots, which is exactly what the fans want.
“Upsets are good for the tournament,” senior Reyn Oyadomori said. “It wouldn’t be March without them. They make the tournament a lot more fun to watch.”
Despite the fun frenzy of the early part of the tournament things seemed to begin to make more sense. The lowest seed left now in the Final Four is a No. 4-seed. This is a big shift from last season’s Final Four, which included a No. 11 and No. 8-seeds.
This year’s tournament features the Louisville Cardinals, the Kentucky Wildcats, the Ohio State Buckeyes and the Kansas Jayhawks.
The Kentucky versus Louisville matchup will take place in New Orleans on March 31 at 6 pm. The rivals boast two well-known head coaches: the Wildcat’s John Calipari and the Cardinal’s Rick Pitino. Pitino, who is reported to be the first coach to take three different schools to the Final Four, hopes to capture his second NCAA Championship. He earned his first one as the coach of the Kentucky Wildcats in 1996. His counterpart, Calipari, is the second coach to take three different teams to the Final Four. However, he has never had the pleasure of winning it all, and looks forward to change that stat this year.
The Calipari-led Wildcats are favored to win the game with an 8.5 line to beat Louisville according to the Gadsden Times. They are also picked at a 6-5 odd to win the NCAA Championship according to the Glantz-Culver.
The Wildcats’ entire starting lineup expects to be picked up in this year’s 2012 NBA draft according to nbadraft.net. The team is lead by Anthony Davis and Michael Kidd Gilchrist.
The Cardinals are still a threat. Louisville is a hot team on an eight-game winning streak, and has not lost since March 3. The team, led by senior guard Peyton Siva will be sure to try and make the game competitive.
The other matchup takes place at 8:49 p.m. on March 31, and it features two more powerhouse teams. Teams that have won a combined four national championships will face off led by coaching staples Bill Self (Kansas) and Thad Matta (Ohio State).
Similarly to the Wildcats, both teams have various players with real NBA potential. Ohio State All-American forward Jared Sullinger will face off against Washington, D.C native and fellow All-American Kansas forward Thomas Robinson.
Bill Self, who won a championship with Kansas in 2008, will look to lead his team with an experience edge over Coach Thad Matta who has made only one appearance in the finals in 2007 in which he lost. Despite this advantage, Kansas still has a monumental challenge against the deeper Ohio State team.
Ohio State is favored by the Glantz-Culver with a 2.5 line, but the low line shows just how close this game is predicted to be.
March 31 is likely to be an entertaining night and builds anticipation to an an even more exciting championship game on April 2.
